Flash Clone Last light
by dldaddy
Summary: Children were swept away to become heroes, while incomplete clones are left to live their lives. Ultimately heartbreak comes to those who love them. One shot deal. Please review! K for mild language.


_June 21st, 2519_

_Elysium City General Hospital_

_Floor 2_

_Room 207_

Ann gently ran her fingers through her son's thin brown hair. _It was always so whimsical._ She reminisced about days watching him play in the front yard. Always an active boy.

_That boy will be a star_. His coaches always told Ann that. She knew they were right. John was always athletically top of his class.

_Not that he didn't have smarts._ John always excelled in his studies too, but sports and movement always came so naturally to him.

A repetitive beep began to emanate from the boy's IV machine, although no one seemed in a hurry to attend to it. Maybe _they _remembered how John used to be, and refused to look on him now, helpless.

Sunlight once again broke through clouds and filtered in through the window's blinds. The harsh light made John squint, even though his eyes were closed.

Anne gently placed a hand on the side of his face and rubbed it, both momentarily blocking the sun as well as -she hoped- bringing comfort to him.

The sight reminded her of yet another time when the boy had played sick to get out of school. Not something he did often, although Anne wished that were the case now.

_Oh how I wish…_ Anne never had gotten a reason for the downturn in her son. It wasn't merely physical either. John had left her fine that morning, then by that evening it was as if most of his memories had been erased. Simple functions and discussions became difficult.

"What happened to you John?" She had broken down and asked, no _pleaded _with him. He couldn't answer.

Still, they had gotten back on the right track. It had been tough on the family, but Anne and John's father had managed to get him excellent medical care, although it seemed all the beeps and fluids in the world were doing nothing to save their son.

"Can someone _please_ turn this dammed beeping off?" Anne began to break down again as John strained to open his eyes. Anne silently cursed herself as she remembered the call button wrapped around the bed's railing and pushed it.

"May I help you?" The nurse's voice was cheery, to the point of being annoying in Anne's distressed state.

"John's IV needs changing."

"A nurse will be in shortly." The speaker clicked off and the room was silent with the exception of the IV's incessant beeping and Anne's thoughts.

"Oh John, your father and I miss you so much." Anne gathered John's hair between her fingers, brought it taught to his head, then let it fall back.

The hair didn't offer gravity much resistance as it fell back toward the pillow, and suddenly Anne was aware that John was looking at her.

The diabetes had destroyed most of his sight, making his mother appear non-featured, like a silhouette cast from a sunlit backdrop. It was the Ketoacidosis, however, that had done most of the damage. A great portion of John's blood was highly acidic, and his neurological problems seemed to alter by the day.

The "pain" days were the worst, like the day when John had tensed up so badly he could only whisper the words "on fire".

More bearable were his periodic bouts with Bell's Palsy. They had gotten so frequent at one point that John even made light of it, saying how Anne's sisters could have a good squeeze of his cheeks without hurting him. Aunts were notorious for that sort of thing.

The humor stopped a long time ago, as John's cognizance slipped. She had always been proud of John's courage throughout his… disease though. She never knew how he managed it, but wished she had the same constitution.

John tried to utter something to his mother, but it was indiscernible. The boy's eyes rolled back and forth, as if he had lost track of Anne's location, but then settled back on her. He began to lift his hand, and Anne immediately grabbed it before it could fall back to the bed.

_So cold…_ Anne leaned over and planted her lips on John's hand, then began diligently rubbing it between her own hands, trying to bring the appendage warmth.

Satisfied in the temperature, she quickly tucked it beneath the white blanket covering John's lower half, and proceeded to pull it up to his neckline.

_Where in the hell is that nurse? _As if on cue a cheerful girl in light blue scrubs walked into the room. Her brown-highlighted ponytail swished rhythmically as she walked over to the IV stand.

"How are we doing today?" Had it been any months ago she might have chastised the girl for what one could deem an insensitive remark. Anne, however, just looked back upon John's face. "Today's a good day."

The remark seemed to strike a chord within John, as the corners of his mouth lifted slightly into an awkward smile. His eyes shifted to look at the nurse as she went about clamping the line and disconnecting the empty bag.

"Say hi to Cassie John." Anne felt that John had affection for the girl, and she had managed to take good care of him during his disease, despite Anne's impatient outbursts.

Apparently Anne was right as the pinkish hue of embarrassment graced his cheeks.

"Thank you." The words left Anne's lips before she knew they were there.

"You're welcome!" Cassie finished reconnecting the new bag and left the room, apparently unaware of the weight behind Anne's words. She hadn't been just thanking the girl for changing the bag and stopping that god-awful beeping.

She was thinking her for bringing something good into what had become a miserable experience for her son.

---------------

_June 28th, 2519_

_Elysium City General Hospital_

_ICU wing_

_Room 3_

Today had been another bad day, but Anne was glad that Mark had been with her. The scene had been so terrifying for her.

It began just like any other. She had seen her husband off to work and then got ready to go be with John. She made it a point to be there first thing each morning, as when she used to be in powerful meetings with powerful people.

_None of that matters anymore. _Anne didn't have to quell with the idea of leaving work to be by her son's bed. They had to make sacrifices along the way, though.

A smaller house was in order, so that for the inevitable day when John got to come home he would not be bothered with having to walk upstairs. _Walk upstairs, as if…_ Memories flashed of John sprinting up the stairs, taking two or three at a time, and always launching himself off the fourth step when coming down.

That was something Anne had always protested, but to no avail. There had just been no slowing John down. _Not until August 17, 2517 that is._ How that date haunted her so.

Still, today almost made her wish she was still at work, and John was running the forty-yard sprints in some after school program.

_Asphyxia. _That one word had stopped Anne in her thoughts when the doctor said it. It was getting harder for John to breathe, and they would have to open him up with a tracheotomy.

Her hands shook as Anne reached to take John's hand, the ventilator making cyclical artificial breathing sounds as it compressed and decompressed, blowing air into John's lungs and causing his chest to rise and fall.

"Be prepared for John to not last through the night." The doctor's words rang like a thousand bombs exploding inside a cavernous pit, reverberating long after the damage had been done.

Still, preparations had to be made. People would need to be called. Mark placed gentle hands upon Anne's shoulders and she used her other hand to take one of his briefly before instead joining it with the other around John's once again cold hand.

"I'll be back. I am going to call the folks." Mark always called his parent _the folks_. Anne never understood it, but just racked it up as a quirk.

"Call mother as my sisters as well." Anne suddenly realized how calm she felt. _Why am I not crying? I want to cry dammit!_

As if summoned tears formed in her eyes, and Mark put away the cell phone he had just extracted from his pocket. Anne stood up as she buried her face in her hands, the tears now flowing free down her face.

Mark took her tightly into his arms and held her, no longer holding back tears either. The two sobbed as their little boy lay dying before them in a cold hospital room, the same boy that should be out enjoying life, winning sporting events and preparing to become something great.

A sudden frantic beeping erupted from John's heart monitor and Anne and Mark rushed to his side. The boy was convulsing, and acted as though he was choking, although that didn't seem right.

Several nurses and doctors came rushing in and brushed John's parents to the side, listening to his vitals with stethoscopes and looking at readouts as the machine flat lined.

"He's in cardiac arrest! We need the paddles!" As if anticipating the order, a nurse brandished the twin paddles as another placed a couple of globs of gel down on John's chest.

Anne watched in shock as the doctor yelled "Clear!" and the electricity was sent into John's chest. The little boy's body arched and settled back into the bed.

This process was repeated a couple of more times as the solid flat line continued to fill the monitor's screen, and a high-pitch monotone sound filled the silence that suddenly crept into the room.

The doctor turned his eyes from the boy lying still in the bed and glanced at the clock. He said nothing, but Anne knew what the motion meant. _Time of death_

"John, no." Anne hesitated momentarily as if unsure what to do, then broke through the line of medical personnel and laid across John's chest. _He is so cold… _Anne rose up and ignored the gel coating on her blouse, instead grabbing the cover and pulling it once again to below John's neck.

"Its ok baby, I'll keep you warm." Anne laid back across John's chest in order to provide additional warmth.

"I'm so sorry." Anne paid no attention to the doctor as he and the nurses shuffled out of the room to start paperwork and declare time of death.

"Baby, you need to warm up. You're going to get sick. John, are you listening to me?" Anne didn't realize she was raising her voice to an almost hysterical yell.

"He's gone Anne." Mark placed his hands around Anne's hips, trying to draw her to him, but she refused.

"Let go of me! My son is cold. _My son is cold…" _Sobs took over as Anne wailed slightly.

Such a scenario was repeated over and over to the tune of seventy-five children. The lives of families were shattered as each of their children seemed to sink into an abyss they could never recover from, and of which the doctors could offer no explanation.

* * *

**_A/N: Hope you liked the story. Just wanted to write something about the flash clones, as I haven't read too much that deals with them._**


End file.
